New TACTIC-ClarityNow! integration minimizes wasted storage and speeds access to digital files

 

Toronto, Canada and Dublin, California – April 27, 2011 – Southpaw Technology, a leading developer of production asset management (PAM) technology for digital entertainment and enterprise companies, and DataFrameworks, the developers of the file-based workflow solution ClarityNow!, announced that they have integrated their technologies – TACTIC and ClarityNow! respectively – to help companies that produce massive amounts of digital content solve one of their most challenging and costly problems: the inefficient management and storage of digital data.

 

With today’s file-based workflows, digital assets and file system storage are an integral part of the production line. As productions grow in size, so too do the number of files to be managed, sometimes into the 100’s of thousands. This growing number of files shrinks the amount of available online storage. Often, when productions near completion, storage capacity is at its lowest point because files have not been moved off line, which in turn jeopardizes the entire production. The TACTIC/ClarityNow! integration will alleviate these problems.

 

As the only solution combining digital asset management with production management, TACTIC enables vast teams of digital artists and animators to efficiently store, track, find and move digital assets through the creation process. With its powerful versioning features, TACTIC can automatically inform ClarityNow! of the latest versions of a file, and then tag older versions of files that need to be moved to near-line or off-line storage, simplifying the task of data managers whose job it is to identify unused files. What’s more, ClarityNow! will organize the files kept in on-, near- and off-line storage to maximize disk space. This not only makes files easier to find; it saves digital productions millions of dollars in manual processes and unnecessary storage costs.

 

”Most digital productions use manual processes to couple file systems to asset management systems, which is completely inefficient,” said Paul Honrud, CEO and founder of DataFrameworks. “By integrating TACTIC and ClarityNow!, both of which have been used in many large-scale productions, we can automate the manual process used by data managers to free up storage.”

 

“I can’t tell you how many productions I’ve seen or been involved in that come to a grinding halt at crunch time because we’ve run out of storage,” said Gary Mundell, CEO of Southpaw Technology. “With this integration, those fire drills are over. Companies can automate the movement of files and keep storage clear without using valuable time and resources to do so.”

 

The integration of TACTIC and ClarityNow! is currently in development and expected by late summer of 2011.

 

About Southpaw Technology Inc.

Southpaw Technology provides production asset management solutions to the media & entertainment and enterprise markets. Available as a web-based solution for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux, TACTIC combines all the asset and production management functionality teams, departments and companies need to keep digital productions on track and on budget, including asset management, project management, workflow management and communication tools. For more information, please visit www.southpawtech.com.

 

About DataFrameworks

DataFrameworks is the leading provider of data management solutions for file-based workflows. ClarityNow!, the company's third-generation data management tool, couples storage resource consumption to production schedules, exposing storage costs per job and eliminating extensive manual file system cleanup by teams of data managers. ClarityNow! is in use worldwide in several demanding multi-petabyte environments. Learn more at www.dataframeworks.com.